There's just no reason for me to play these boring ass Sony games man, the techbro mindless writing, the ridiculous attachment to formula, the sloppy tedious boring combat, all on an assembly line to feel identical to every other product this company puts out. The swinging at least feels superficially good if completely automated, but like the previous game, it's mostly combat, combat barely differentiated from the previous game with next to no variety. They couldn't even give Miles an original moveset, let alone let you do anything more interesting with the black suit than a few cooldown skills

Something I've picked up as a hobby over the past year has been cooking. One part a holdover from an ex I really loved, one part boredom with the monotonous processed sludge I was still eating after a childhood of dining on it (mom knew three recipes and never met a spice she liked), cooking has become both a creative endeavor and a healing process for me. I love being able to make something with my hands for my friends and family, I like the time to myself, I like the meticulous process and the way you can futz with shit and do it your way just by, like, changing some ingredients. Venba is a delightful game that uses the joy of cooking as a path the story of an immigrant family in Canada, with various meals acting as touchpoints for a child's growth, mostly as a sort of counter imperialism. Venba herself constantly remarks over fears of losing her child to Canadian culture, and it's absolutely scary that to many in the global south, the slim chance of a "better life" means moral compromise and dessication of their identity in favor of Western consumerism. Food provides a sort of fulcrum point where (wonderfully evocative of the period) music, language, and memories of prior generations are brought together in a very calming and straightforward way, it's just a wonderully paced hour of game storytelling.

P.S. sorry about almost burning down your house and totally beefing that Biriyani that one time Lana ;P

I feel like I'm watching something die while playing this, there's something uncannily disturbing and also pathetic to it. 2077 is an aesthetically visionless game, a collage of 2012 cyberpunk wallpapers, complete w the thoroughly unexamined orientalism. Mechanically your options are the standard collection of Ubisoft open worldisms, pick up guns that are magically bigger number than the same gun you had an hour ago, pick up a collectable, talk to a guy to go to a base where you can either do shallow stealth or shitty shooting, and sometimes you might get to pick a dialogue option! Plus like every modern AAA game loads and loads of trivial terrible unskippable dialogue. Gave up after the third crash in 12 hours, lmao fuck this game. Remember when they put flashing lights in it that could kill people?

From Software did it! They made a real ass Armored Core with all the nerd shit appealing to gormless normies like myself. Absurd, unexplained complex stats weighing down the coolest fucking equipment sets, brick walls that force you to retool everything on your frame, a radio play storyline between all the handlers who want to fuck you soooooo bad. Still not into the build over skill formula here, especially with how easy it is to settle into something super overpowered (chain guns OP stun needles OP), but almost every mission has some unique spin or dazzling spectacle moment to keep things moving.